If you travel the Garden Art Route, you are in for a blooming marvelous experience! The route runs between the towns of Cleves and Brühl and the Rhine and Meuse rivers and is a network of around 60 showcase gardens in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Dutch border region. It offers an insight into 300 years of European garden art up to the present day and with us as your guides, your foot will already be through the garden gate.

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The Garden Art Route passes through the Rhineland and the Dutch province of Limburg, which are home to a variety of gardens of immeasurable cultural value. The gates of castle grounds and country parks, arboreta, botanical gardens, abbey grounds, the gardens of villas, houses and farms stand open before you, whilst horticultural shows, botanical exhibitions, enriching art and sculpture exhibitions and much more besides make sure to show off their best side.

Garden art in all its variety

Along the route you will discover a wealth of beautiful, and often historical gardens, such as castle grounds dating from the late Baroque period and romantic English landscaped gardens. Some of them, such as the UNESCO World Heritage Site Augustusburg Castle, are very famous, while others are still only known to insiders; many gardens also bear the thumbprint of famous landscape architects and artists such as Peter J. Lenné or Maximilian F. Weye. Visitors would be forgiven for believing they were standing in one of the world's famous landscaped gardens such as the Loire Valley or those of many an English county!

Gardens open their gates

The route leads through sweeping gardens with dainty Baroque parterres, mirror pools and secret French bosquet gardens, to the foot of imposing castles and English-style gardens on small hills and full of ponds, groves, lawns and along meandering paths with a surprise around every corner.

A longing for beauty

The parks and gardens with their connected Herrenhausen and castles truly capture the visitor's imagination. The diverse palette of gardens spans from Dyck Palace and the Centre for Garden Art and Landscape Culture to the sculpture park at Moyland Castle, Benrath Palace, the Sanssouci-esque terraced gardens of Kamp Abbey, the garden kingdom found in the riverbank meadows along the river Erft on the island of Hombroich to the Japanese garden in the town of Leverkusen.

A colourful diversity of gardens, art and culture

Even today, centuries of historical garden art can be appreciated in these gardens, and in others the ideas and artistry of modern landscape architects are brought to the foreground. Stroll through "the Vanity Garden" (Garten der Eitelkeiten) to explore its plant symbols. Let yourself be inspired by the joyful atmosphere of the "Garden of Friendly Neighbours" (Garten der freundlichen Nachbarn) or feel the contemplative power of the "Jewish Garden" (Jüdischer Garten). There is one thing that connects them all, however: a distinctive style and individuality.